#taejinjae

now, let's be a little kinder. we would still love him if he was a worm.

I haven't been able to stop thinking about that lately. Yoojin's hatred for himself is both terrible and fascinating.

At first, I thought he didn't mind Sung Hyunjae calling him an object because he also considered him an object whose abilities he could exploit. But as the story progressed, I realized it was because Yoojin considered himself an object. He was a means to an end, and that end was Yoohyun's "happiness." He doesn't consider himself a person; he's less than a monster. His interest in himself is so low that he doesn't even know his favorite color or that he likes sweets. Think of it as spending every day with someone you have absolutely no interest in. Why pay attention to Han Yoojin when Yoohyun exists? When the lovely Yerim and the amazing (and strong-armed) master blacksmith are around? When Guild Leader Sesung is there? When he has to stop Director Song from giving his gift to the government?

The fact that we have to guess things like what he likes already says something.

My baby Yoojin built his life around his younger brother, and when he left, everything crumbled like a house of cards. Instead of being an opportunity for self-discovery, this turned into an eight-year-long hate campaign against him. Hate was everywhere: on social media, in the news, at work, on the street, in absolutely every corner of his life. If he already lacked self-worth, now everyone else seemed to agree with him.

He gags when he thinks about himself. How bad do you have to feel about yourself to get to that point?Even when he liked someone (the huntress whose name I don't remember), it wasn't about how he felt about her, it was about how amazing she was and what a good person she was. Han Yoojin doesn't love himself, he tolerates himself. He tolerates his existence so that his brother and the people around him can be happy.

Even when we see his clone in the Chatboot arc, we can see how he fantasizes about suicide as some form of liberation, something he would never do because he has his children, but knowing that what he does will not affect anyone, he chooses death with a disturbing ease.

Yoojin isn't the type of person who's embarrassed to admit she likes sweets or the color pink. Yoojin "doesn't like anything in particular," while she will tell you how Yerim likes cute things and Hyunjae doesn't like the crust on bread. He doesn't hide it, it's just that he's not interested enough to even ask himself about it; he barely tolerates its mere existence; what he likes is irrelevant.